by TR Cameron
Jax’s foes stood on either side of the aisle in the same row, seemingly content to let the noncombatants clear the path and shoot him. They both suddenly looked quizzical, as if something unexpected was happening. Then they simultaneously holstered their pistols, pulled out batons, and snapped them out full-length to reveal ends that sizzled and crackled.
Athena reported, “They received instructions to capture rather than kill you. They plan to secure the station at Inverness.”
He had maybe ten seconds before the path to his enemies would be clear of passengers. Can the Academy rescue us if we get there?
“I’ll find out.”
The bystanders got out of the way, and the faux college kid came forward first. Jax feared that they’d try to pin him against the back of the car where they could each get into a row and strike from two angles, so he advanced to meet him. The other man looked to be about twenty-one years old, was built like a wrestler, and his baton positioning showed he had some familiarity with it. I don’t suppose you figured out the transponder problem on the pistol.
“I have not. A subroutine is working on it, but without additional research, it seems unlikely I will stumble upon the right frequency and command code.”
Okay. Kill the pain from my arm. It’s a distraction. The sensation went away, and he narrowed his eyes. His foe swiped the staff horizontally at his skull, and Jax leaned back to let the tip careen past his face with only an inch to spare, compensating for the man’s mid-strike arm extension. He offered his opponent a nod. “Nice move. Of course, I saw it coming about a week ago. Do you really think you’re good enough to have any chance of beating someone with my experience?”
The other man shrugged. His voice was confident, but not overly so. “You’re done, Reese. Whether it’s me, my partner, or someone else two weeks from now, you’re going down.”
Jax nodded again. Smart, not revealing the surprise waiting at Inverness. “Do you even know why you’re doing this?”
The agent laughed and feinted, which caused Jax to tense up for an instant. “Don’t know, and don’t care. You’re military. You know the rules. They say jump, and you’re already in the air before you ask how high.”
“I get it. But let me ask you this,” then Jax moved. It was occasionally possible to give an opponent a false sense of security by making them think you’re having a conversation. Another great strategy was to attack them while they were talking. There was something about being human that made one desire the closure of a finished sentence. He rushed the other man, and the baton came across at his head in a forward strike from his right side. Jax stepped forward with his right foot and pivoted, which brought his prosthetic left arm around faster than his rival could’ve possibly expected. He grabbed the baton’s shaft before the stunning tip struck him and continued the spin while levering an elbow into the man’s face. As his opponent stumbled backward, Jax lifted his left leg and smashed it straight out backward in a back kick to his foe’s sternum that sent him flying. His skull smacked against a pole with a dull clang, and he landed bonelessly, clearly out of the fight.
Jax’s support leg buckled, and he fell hard on the knee. He pushed the pain away and threw himself into a stumbling run toward the front of the car, where he turned with the baton raised in defense. The other agent, obviously the senior of the two in both age and position, smiled at him. His voice was deeper than the first man’s and carried much more accusation and disgust in its tone. “I guess you’re all we’ve been promised. But as the boy said, it doesn’t matter. The most painless way for you to handle this would be to let me stun you. Because if you continue to resist, I’m gonna be sure to break a few things that you probably consider important before I put you out.” The man backed up into the entryway, where the absence of seats would provide more room for him to maneuver. Unfortunately, unlike his partner, he seemed content to wait Jax out. Athena, any word on Inverness?
“A team will be in place to assist as soon as possible, but they likely won’t be able to win a straight fight. We’ll need to run to reach them. And that agent is between us and the exit.”
Jax sighed. That’s always the way, isn’t it? He sauntered toward the middle of the car. At the rear, the passengers were all crowded together with their eyes locked on Jax and his foe. They were the other reason Jax didn’t feel comfortable simply waiting until the train reached its destination. If the enemy agent convinced them to assist, Jax could be easily overwhelmed while he did his best not to kill the civilians as they swarmed him. No, I need to handle this fast.
He strode forward and flipped the baton around in his hand so it was reversed along his forearm. The other man maintained his forehand grip and steadied himself, centering his balance over his feet while his eyes tracked Jax’s approach. His voice was low and confident. “You sure this is how you want to do it?” The grin on his face suggested his preference would be for an affirmative answer.
Jax gave him one. “Less talking, more fighting.” He stepped forward and slashed his baton across at a descending diagonal, and the agent skipped backward to avoid it. A rising block deflected a backhand stab with the point, and his foe snapped his baton out at Jax. He slid in and took the blow on the extended elbow of his prosthetic arm while making sure the tip stayed away from him and lashed out with a front kick. The man slapped it aside with a downward strike of his free hand, then grabbed Jax’s wrist. His foe yanked at the arm, and Jax pulled in the opposite direction and rotated his palm upward to break the grip.
The hold had been a distraction, and the point of his enemy’s baton came up straight at his eyes. Jax bent backward as far as he could, and his right leg failed him again and dropped him onto his back. His enemy swarmed forward and placed his hands on the seatbacks of the nearest row to lever himself into a jump, his feet aimed at Jax’s knees. Jax yanked his legs to his chest before the man landed and thrust his heels out at his foe’s knees, but the agent was already backpedaling. A baton smashed into his left ankle, and Jax laughed. Finally, somebody hits the prosthetic.
He forced himself back to vertical and shook his head. Red spots on the floor caught his eye, and he saw that in addition to hanging uselessly, his right arm was also discharging blood at an alarming rate. No time to deal with that now, but it does sort of put a clock on this fight, doesn’t it? He flowed into a forward charge with a shout. His opponent stepped into a back stance, then lunged ahead with his baton like a fencer to spear Jax in the chest. With a small prayer that his legs wouldn’t fail him, Jax launched himself into the air in a low somersault, swiped down with his prosthetic arm to deflect the baton, and finished the move with a double kick to the man’s chest.
His foe went flying, and his baton fell to the floor. He stalked toward the agent, who rose to his feet and reached under his coat for his pistol. Jax shook his head. “Naughty, naughty. Orders are orders.” He stepped forward, thrust the stun tip of his baton into his foe’s throat, and held it there while the man twitched for a moment before dropping. “Jerk.”
He pointed at one of the passengers, an older, gentlemanly looking guy wearing a belt, and ordered, “You, come with me. I need to teach you how to make a tourniquet. As a reward for your assistance, you can help me stun any bad guys who have delusions of adequacy.”
Chapter Three
Juno’s voice was equal parts disbelief and condescension. “You’re a damn fool, Jackson Reese, you know that?”
From his position on the hard table beneath her, he offered her exasperated expression a grin. An all-out dash through the building had followed his arrival at the train station. The agents who had laid in wait had found themselves suddenly blocked or otherwise distracted by undercover operatives from the Academy. Jax had run the gauntlet and burst outside to find a van waiting, and was pretty sure he’d lost consciousness during the leap into the vehicle. He remembered nothing of the drive back to the castle or how he’d wound up in this room. The sight of the articulated robot arms on the ceiling when he finall
y pried his eyes open led him to the inevitable conclusion that he was in Dr. Juno Cray’s medical laboratory. His body was a massive bundle of pain. His right arm throbbed with it, his right leg felt like something was notably amiss, and his skull split as badly as he’d ever felt, probably thanks to the broken nose. He didn’t know why painkillers weren’t flowing through his veins, but he wasn’t a fan.
He ran his tongue across dry lips to wet them. “Nice to see you, too, Doc.”
Juno sighed and shook her head. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, her perfect skin was free of makeup, and she wore her typical white lab coat over the Academy-standard black trousers and T-shirt. “Honestly, you’re a danger to yourself and everyone around you.”
Jax chuckled. “Are you referring to my job or to dating me?” He tried to waggle his eyebrows seductively, but her sudden grin suggested he’d failed miserably.
“You’re also an idiot.” She looked across him, and he turned his head to see an assistant stood on the opposite side of the table. “Help me get him into the scanner.” He tensed, expecting they would ask him to try to rise, which wasn’t a feat he was confident he could perform. And one never likes to have performance issues with women they’re trying to impress. He laughed inwardly at his joke.
Athena made a sound very much like a snort. “I think it’s fair to assume Dr. Cray has no reason to be impressed with you, regardless of what you do. I still have no idea why she continues to pursue the fiction that you might be suitable romantic partner material. Pity, I’m guessing.”
Hush. His right arm jostled as they moved the table suddenly, and he bit down on the moan that attempted to escape. They rolled him to the far end of the room, to the stand-up scanner he’d used before. It slid upward on a track and the long half-cylinder extended to cover his body as Juno and her colleague pushed the table into place. In a slightly muffled voice she ordered, “Remain still. We’re going to do a full workup, and it will take fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Jax considered the attack he’d faced and what the appropriate response to it might be. Clearly, Zavian Arlox, the head of the UCCA Intelligence Division, had decided that the time for games had passed. Where his moves against Jax and the Academy had previously been subtle, now he was blatantly trying to sweep the board clean. Pretty inconvenient for the pieces, I’d say.
Athena agreed. “Speaking as one of them, I would prefer that you took a little better care of yourself in the future.”
Can’t promise anything, I’m afraid. There was no way to tell when the next attack would come, but it was now more or less guaranteed that if they didn’t end Arlox, eventually, Arlox would end them. He wasn’t sure who their enemy might target, but it certainly included the people at the Academy, Jax, Major Anika Stephenson, and probably Jax’s Special Forces unit as well. All of them were aware to a greater or lesser degree of the government official’s actions. That made their continued existence a threat to his power and authority, which clearly couldn’t stand.
Athena observed, “Also, likely the people you have relied upon during your missions. Lady Elle for one, possibly the Reardens, for another.”
Dammit, you’re right. He shook his head slightly, and a stern “Stop moving” came from beyond the sensor shield. The real question is, what are we going to do about it? It was virtually impossible to get to Arlox, or at least Jax certainly had no idea how he might accomplish such a thing. The man was paranoid, and with good reason given his role as spymaster for the Alliance. Both the Confederacy and the Alien Coalition would throw celebrations were he to meet an untimely demise. Jax was sure that most of the people who’d encountered Arlox probably felt the same way. He’d met similar personalities in the military, and they were far from beloved. Yep, I’m at a loss on this one.
Athena replied, “Well, it’s good that you tend to surround yourself with people smarter than you, then. Perhaps the Professor, or Dr. Cray, or Cia, or maybe even one of the groundskeeping robots can give you some ideas.”
Aww, you’re the only robot I listen to, so there’s no need to worry about being replaced by another. He knew that being called a robot irritated her, so he tried to work it into their conversation as often as he could. He was ruminating on how to kill someone as well-hidden as Arlox when the canopy rose to reveal Juno staring down at him. She wore a frown, the kind he’d seen on doctors’ faces before that signals bad news to come. He nodded solemnly. “Give it to me straight, Doc. It’s a fatally broken heart, right? Try not to feel too guilty for not asking me out before such a tragic event occurred.”
She rolled her eyes. “If only it were something so simply remedied. No, I have two important pieces of information to share. The first is that you are now completely wired.”
A male voice entered the conversation unexpectedly. Professor Nikolai Maarsen said, “What’s that? The AI has spread its influence fully through him?”
Juno nodded. “Athena has been using biological material to create connections from her core in his brain throughout his body. The expansion speed seems to have increased beyond our baseline projections. I would’ve expected only about two-thirds coverage by now, based on our last evaluation.” She lowered her head to look at him. “Athena, would you care to explain?”
A nearby monitor flickered, then the image of the artificial intelligence’s avatar appeared upon it. She had long blonde hair swept over to one side, thin eyebrows, and a wide smile. Her voice indicated no regret, chagrin, reluctance, or anything similar about the situation. “Of course, Dr. Cray. Jax has received an unexpectedly large amount of quick heal drugs in the past few weeks. Due to this, I have been able to accelerate the spread of my connections. That, combined with the ability to boost his endorphins and chemical balance to make his body’s acceptance of the changes smoother, has made it possible to roughly double the speed with which I could construct the lines.”
Maarsen sounded both thoughtful and unworried. “Now that you have the connections, what do you intend to do with them?” It was a potentially loaded question. Jax generally tried not to think about the fact that he harbored a being in his head who might have its own agenda. Whenever the notion crossed his mind, he pushed any consideration of it away since there was nothing he could do about it. His passenger was too deeply embedded in his brain tissue to remove her without killing him. But if he had become the AI’s tool, that particular undesired outcome might no longer be a sufficient deterrent when weighed against the need to control her.
Athena seemed to understand the unspoken concern. “Only what I’ve been doing so far, Professor, but better. I can increase the speed of his muscular response when necessary, I can control blood flow better than I have before, and I can now use all his senses to a higher degree than I was previously able.”
Juno asked bluntly, “Can you make him do things he doesn’t want to do?”
A slight hesitation preceded Athena admitting, “Yes, but not effectively or efficiently. Even with all of my processing power, I cannot match the throughput required to operate a human body. There’s too much going on simultaneously. I can make the legs move, but I cannot maintain balance as well as Jax. I can swing the arm, but I cannot target it as effectively as we could together. We are better thought of as symbiotes, rather than as one being in control and another subordinate.”
Jax added, “I don’t feel like a zombie if that’s any help.”
Juno and the Professor replied together, “It’s not.” The doctor continued, “What safeguards do we have against the possibility that you’re lying to us, and have become some sort of danger?”
Athena’s tone didn’t change. “You have none. The options are the same as they were from the beginning. However, there is no safe way to remove me without killing Jax. I could survive, but I presume if you removed me, I wouldn’t be re-implanted in a human, which is my fundamental purpose. To be honest, I find the current arrangement rewarding and have no desire to alter it.” A note of hopefulness entered her voice and remind
ed him how much her verbal communication had improved since their meeting. “Unless, of course, a more intelligent host with the same physical aptitudes was available.”
Jax groaned, and the other two laughed. Juno said, “Okay, let’s put a pin in that conversation for now. I have bad news, Jax. We couldn’t save your arm. It’ll have to be removed and replaced.”
He nodded. “I figured that it was probably done for when I no longer felt pain from the bullets hitting it. Do what you gotta do, Doc.”
She nodded, brusque and businesslike, and looked up at the others in the room. “Okay. Let’s put him out.” The robot arms whirred, a cold needle bit into his neck, and he knew no more.
Jax awoke in a darkened medical lab to find Juno seated in the chair next to him, reading. A self-assessment revealed that all the pain had vanished, and he took a moment to savor the relief of its absence. He coughed. “How did it go?”
She closed her book and stood. “Take a look for yourself.” Long fingers pulled back the sheet that covered him to show his right arm, which was still a skeletal array of metal and fiber. The skin graft was creeping in from the spot where the mechanical piece met the portion of his human arm that remained. He saw something strange that he didn’t recognize near the top and pointed at it. “What’s that?”
Juno replied, “That’s Athena.”
Really?
The artificial intelligence replied, “Yes. It’s much easier to create the line before all the additional biological matter has filled in. You’ll have more strength and precision with this arm than you do with the other one.
He looked up at Juno. “Advanced model, eh?”